Dolphin Puns

This Punpedia entry is all about dolphin puns! The most famous dolphin pun involves the play on “porpoise” to replace the word “purpose”. Technically, porpoises aren’t dolphins, but they are very closely related, so we’re grouping them in here. Being aquatic mammals, and specifically cetaceans, dolphins are also closely related to whales, so head over to the entry on whale puns if you’re looking for more cetacean-themed puns. Also, although technically orcas (killer whales) are part of the dolphin family, they’re included in both the whale puns entry and this entry. You might also like to check out the entries on beach puns, ocean puns and fish puns.

As with all entries on Punpedia, if you’ve got a great pun, you can post it in the comments and one of our curators will add it to this entry. And if you’re looking for visual puns, there’s a collection of visual dolphin puns towards the end of this entry.

Dolphin Puns List

Each item in this list of dolphin puns is either a simple word-swap (e.g. Purpose → Porpoise) or it may be a general rule from which multiple puns can be made. In the case of general rules, the asterisks sign (*) represents one or more letters.

  • Purpose → Porpoise: As in “I didn’t do it on porpoise!” and “They porpoisefully moved toward me.” and “I can tell you’re being porpoisely vague.” and “They are not to be used for illegal porpoises.” and “I love my new multi-porpoise cleaning spray!”
  • Something → Somefin: As in “There’s somefin about the way he walks” and “Is that a shark, or somefin else?”.
  • Nothing → Nofin: As in “Nofin is better than swimming with dolphins” and “I’ve got nofin left to give!”.
  • Fan* → Fin*: “fan” can sometimes be replaced with “fin” at the start of words to create fin puns: fintastic (fantastic), finciful (fanciful), finfare (fanfare), fintasy, findom, finciful.
  • Fine/Fin./Find/Fun → Fin: The word “fin” can be used to replace many small words than have both ‘f’ and ‘n’ like “fun” and “find”. The term “fin” also a French word meaning “finish”, and so is sometimes seen at the end of old films and books.
  • *fin*: If a word contains “fin”, it’s an easy dolphin pun: affinity, coffin, definitive, definitively, finch, finesse, finishfinished, finnish, finland, infinity, infinitesimal.
  • Poor person → Porpoise-on: As in “That porpoise-on, just can’t stop making dolphin puns.”
  • Defin* → Dolphin: As in “We dolphinitely need more time to finish the mission.” and “What is the dolphinition of this word?” and “Please dolphine this word.” and “It’s the dolphinitive source of Nordic history.”
  • In* → Fin*: A lovely and shameful pun can be made from any word starting with “in”. Simply replace “in” with “fin”: finformation, finfluence, finvolve, finternational, finvolved, fintroduce, findeed, finvestment, finto, finclude, finteresting, fintellectual, finjury, fintend, finterview, finsurance, finstrument, … Thousand more can be made with the help of a list like this.
  • *fici* → *fishi*: If a word contains “fici” it can often be replaced with “fishi”. Here are some examples: affishionado, artifishial, benefishial, coeffishient, defishiency, defishit, ineffishient, suffishient, ofishial, profishient, superfishial.
  • Issue → Fishue: As in “That’s not the fishue here though.” and “I was fishued a sign for parking without a ticket”.
  • Orchestra → Orcastra: As in “It was a small orcastra, but it was nice.” and of course conjugations like orcastratration, orcastrator and orcastrate can also be made. Remember, orcas are part of the dolphin family of aquatic mammals.
  • Accom* → Orcam*: If a word begins with “accom”, a terrible/amazing orca pun can be made: orcammadate (accomodate), orcampany (accompany), orcamplished (accomplished), orcamplice (accomplice), orcampaniments (accompaniments), orcamplice (accomplice).
  • Killer: Orca‘s are also known as killer whales (even though they’re dolphins), so you can slip “killer” into a sentence for a subtle pun: “These jokes are just killer!” and “Oh wow, that was a killer whale pun.”
  • Door salesperson → Dorsals person: As in “Door-to-dorsals people are really annoying.” and “Does anyone actually buy things from dorsalsmen?”
  • Mum will / Mum’ll → Mammal: As in “I’m working late, so mammal pick you up tonight.”
  • *tail: Dolphins have a “tail”, and it’s sort of takes up half their body, so if you’re stretching for an extra dolphin pun, words containing tail like entail, detail, retail and cocktail may just get you over the line.
  • Fluke: The two “lobes” which make up a dolphin’s tail are called “flukes”, and a “fluke” in regular usage is an unlikely and surprising occurrence of a good thing.
  • Flip her → Flipper: As in “Don’t you dare flipper off! That’s rude!” and “We’re going to need to flipper on her belly before the surgery.”
  • Calf: A young dolphin is called a “calf“, and this word can also refer to the calf muscle which can be used to make a pun.
  • Bull: A male dolphin is called a “bull”, and this word has several other meanings which can be used to make a pun. For example: “That’s a load of bull” and “Yeah, he’s a bit of a bully.”
  • Cow: A female dolphin is called a “cow“, and this word has several other meanings which can be used to make a pun (For example, it can mean “to intimidate”).
  • Spout: The blowhole from which dolphin breathe is often called a “spout“, and so with the right context we can make a pun of it using one of the other definitions: “Oh will you stop spouting your nonsense please.”
  • Bottle: The bottle-nosed dolphin may be famous enough to simple use “bottle” as a dolphin pun in the right context. “Bottle” has many definition, as in: “Can you please fill my bottle?” and “He tried to bottle me over the head!” and “We need to bottle all this juice by sundown.”
  • *cy → *sea: If a word ends in “cy” it’s an easy “sea” pun: polisea, agensea, democrasea, currensea, emergensea, efficiensea, tendensea, frequensea, fansea, constituensea, pregnansea, accurasea, redundansea, bureaucrasea, presidensea, legasea, conspirasea, mersea, privasea, bankruptsea, consistensea, literasea, urgensea, deficiensea, dependency, consultansea, tenacity, isea (icy), secrecy, intimasea. See ocean puns entry for more.
  • Se* → Sea*: Some words that start with just “se” also have a “sea”-ish sound: seacret, searious, seargeant, seacretion, seacure, seacurity, seacondary, seacretariat, seaconds, seacrete, searum, searenity, searvitude. See ocean puns entry for more.
  • Sea*: Most words starting with “sea” are easy sea puns: season, seasonal, seated, searingly, sealants, seam. See ocean puns entry for more.
  • See* → Sea*: If a word starts with “see” it can often be replaced with “sea” to create a simple sea pun: seaminly, seads, seaker, seathe, seap, seak, sean, sea (see). See ocean puns entry for more.
  • *ways → *waves: Words than end in “ways” can be made into bad wave puns: alwaves (always), railwaves (railways), sidewaves, pathwaves, lengthwaves, doorwaves.
  • Bubbly: “bubbly” has a “this water is bubbly” sense and a “he has a really bubbly personality” sense.
  • What an animal → Water animal: As in “Water animal you’ve become.”
  • Grampa’s → Grampus: A “grampus” refers to a cetacean (a group that includes whales, dolphins and porpoises) of the dolphin family, in particular, and especially to an orca or a “Risso’s dolphin”.
  • Dive: As in “The stock market took a dive today.” and “I tried to dive for the ball to intercept it.” and “This relationship has really taken a dive lately.”
  • Heard this → Herd fish: As in “I herd fish guy calling my name.” and “I over-herd fish really bad pun the other day.” For context, dolphins often hunt together in groups by “herding” fish into a ball and then taking turns to swim through the ball and get a mouth full.

Dolphin-Related Phrases

Common phrases, idioms and cliches which are related to dolphins can be used for some subtle and witty word play. Here is a list of the dolphin themed phrases that we’ve found so far:

  • Going swimmingly
  • A drop in the ocean
  • A sea change
  • Swimming along nicely
  • Like a fish out of water
  • Plenty of fish in the sea
  • Something fishy about that
  • Bigger fish to fry
  • We’re short on phrases for this entry, please help improve Punpedia by posting suggestions in the comments! 🙂

Dolphin-Related Words

There are always more puns to be invented! Here’s a list of dolphin-related words to help you out. If you come up with any new dolphin puns, please share them in the comments!

porpoise, bottle-nose, river dolphin, cetacea, cetacean, mammal, saltwater, ocean, sea, beach, jump, jumped, blowhole, flipper, fin, echolocation, sonar, click, clicking, whistle, marine, grampus, calf, dive, splash, flip, bubble, bubbles, herd fish, spin, playful, aquatic, marine, dorsal, leaping, orca, killer whale, fish

Got more dolphin-related words? Please help improve Punpedia by posting them in the comments!

Dolphin Jokes

If you’re looking for extremely corny dolphin jokes, then you’ve come to the right place. All of these jokes rely on some sort of pun for their punchline. Tap or hover on the back rectangle to show the answer.

  • How does a group of dolphins decide on something? – They flipper coin!
  • How did they know the dolphin attack was no accident? – Because dolphins do everything on Porpoise.
  • What did the baby dolphin do when he didn’t get his way? – She whale-d
  • What is a dolphin’s favorite TV show? – Whale of fortune!
  • What birthday party game do dolphin like to play? – Salmon says!
  • Why don’t dolphin do well on school tests? – Because they work below C-Level.
  • What is the most important vitamin in a dolphin’s diet? – Vitamin Sea!
  • Where do dolphin races end? – At dolphinish line!
  • How do dolphin’s say the word “finish”? – Fin. (The french word for “finish”)
  • What’s a dolphin’s favourite sport? – Golphin’
  • What did the mommy dolphin do when her son was an hour late for dinner? – She flipped!

Dolphin Pun Images

We’ve scrummaged through the internet and managed to gather together all the visual dolphin puns (memes, comics, etc.) that we could. If you’ve made or found any more, please share a link to it in the comments!

Did this Punpedia article help you?

All stocked up on dolphin puns? Or maybe you’re looking for something more specific that wasn’t in this entry? More dolphin jokes? More visual puns? A bigger list of dolphin puns that you can use in conversation? Whatever the case, please let us know in the comments! One of our curators or a member of the Punpedia community will do their best to help you out. And as always, if you have any dolphin puns that we don’t, please share them with us in the comments! Thanks for visiting Punpedia 🙂

Suggest a new pun!

Got a new pun that isn't in this Punpedia entry? Submit it below and if it's terrible enough, our curators will add it to the entry! Your pun should ideally be of the form Normal --> Pun: "Example sentence". Thanks!